1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a computer apparatus and to a program for controlling the computer apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
When an image search is conducted, an image search command is transmitted from a client computer to a server computer in a client-server model. The server computer executes processing in accordance with the command and transmits data indicative of the result of processing to the client computer. In order to execute processing in accordance with the image search command in a plurality of server computers, the client computer must transmit the command to all of these server computers. This subjects the client computer to a heavy load.
There are systems in which a center server is provided and a list of all image data that has been stored in all content servers connectable to the center server is stored in the center server. By transmitting an image search command from a client computer to the center server, a search of images that have been stored in the content servers is conducted by the center server. However, since the entirety of the search is conducted by the center server, the center server is subjected to a heavy load.
Furthermore, in a peer-to-peer model, an image search command transmitted from a client computer is received by a content server, which proceeds to conduct the image search. The image search command is transferred from the content server that received the command to another content server, where the image search is conducted again. However, since there are instances where the command will not be distributed to a large number of content servers, an efficient search may not be conducted.